It’s 2018 and people are increasingly reminded NOT to make assumptions about other people based on any demographic values; age, sex, marital status can no longer (nor should they ever) define a person’s interests.
Regardless, there is still a number of inexplicable consumer behaviours in media, retail and in business; single men read FHM, married women shop at Laura Ashley, CIOs are only interested in new technology systems and not their ROI…
However, even in measurable quantities these stereotypes are based on past trends and should not represent the future of targeted marketing.
Drawing on Alex’s latest blog which highlights the fact that B2B sales are still defined by a conversation between one human and another, it may be worth considering that alternative routes to reaching individuals within a target market are emerging.
As emotional distance from power figures becomes a thing of the past B2B content drifts into consumer press where the C-level executives can be found out of working hours.
Even the Sun recognises a need to appeal to readers outside of the cisgender (identifying with the gender assigned at birth) male demographic as it calls an end to the topless models of page three fame.
It seems that the age of the everyman professional is among us.
Lifestyle advice segments in women’s magazines have been limited in the past to housekeeping matters, or the occasional domestic financial management insight. Similarly, it would not have been unusual for gentlemen’s magazines to reference horse racing favourites or the stock market – topics that would rarely be found in Woman & Home magazine!
Now, Cosmopolitan magazine offers career advice for seasoned professional between makeup tips and nightlife reviews, while HR strategy is an unexpected arrival in finance titles, now that the media has wised-up to the fact that team managers in finance would be interested in both.
For example, our client Wax Digital, who is a specialist in procurement recently identified ways in which procurement software might improve presentation skills.
It’s more than the introduction of titles such as Women in Business, which tailor professional content to women. There is an increasing cross-over of industry sectors and cultural references within targeted content that can be capitalised on to an untapped resource for potential customers.
Juliet has been developing inspirational quirks and original opinions since 1994.
